'Million bomblets' in S Lebanon"Not prohibited under international law" -- well, it's nice to know that the Light Of The Nations(tm) is staying under the speed limit on this one.Up to a million cluster bomblets discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.
The UN's mine disposal agency says about 40% of the cluster bombs fired or dropped by Israel failed to detonate - three times the UN's previous estimate.
... The devices have killed 14 people in south Lebanon since the August truce.
The manager of the UN's mine removal centre in south Lebanon, Chris Clark, said Israel had failed to provide useful information of its cluster bomb strikes, which could help with the clearance operation.
Last month, the UN's humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in the conflict....
He said more than 40,000 cluster bomblets had been cleared since the fighting ended on 14 August, but many more remained scattered "in bushes, trees, hedges and wire fences". Mr Clark said information Israel had provided to help with the bomblets' clearance had been "useless"....
Hundreds of bomblets are packed into the cluster bombs, which are fired from the ground or dropped by aircraft.
The bombs detonate in mid-air, dispersing the drinks-can sized bomblets over a wide area. Those which do not explode on impact become like anti-personnel mines.
The use of cluster bombs is not prohibited under international law.
Cluster bombs, as mentioned above, are what the antiseptic jargon of the military, and of military groupies like the Democratic Party, refers to as "anti-personnel weapons". That is, they are designed to create large areas of land where people can only go at the risk of being maimed or killed, days or weeks or months after the hot fighting is over. It doesn't matter whether the person in question is a soldier, or an olive grower, or a small child -- they're all, as the Pentagon and the Democrats like to say, "interdicted" -- if they want to keep their hands and eyes.
Cluster bombs are a classic sanitary weapon -- the way a country that can afford an air force fights a people who can't. The Israelis love 'em, and we loved 'em in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, we also loved 'em in Kosovo. Shown below, two large-scale consumers of cluster bombs:
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
NATO forces made extensive use of cluster bombs during the conflict in Kosovo.... NATO has confirmed that, in total, 1,392 cluster bombs containing 289,536 bomblets were [dropped] inside Kosovo.For a typical "non-armoured target," see the photo at the top of this post -- if you can stand to look at it again.Of these, the overwhelming majority were BL 755 and CBU-87B cluster bombs.... A single BL 755 cluster bomb, a munition first developed in the 1960s, contains 147 bomblets, each reportedly capable of penetrating 25 centimetres of armour with its shaped metal charge... At the same time, the bomblet's coiled casing shatters into 2,000 pre-shaped fragments which are scattered over a radius of some 30-40 metres and are designed to be effective against troops and non-armoured targets.
O ye progs -- when you have a Democrat who'd willing to say something halfway human about this topic, then you can come and knock on my door. Until then -- well, if I were a younger guy, I'd kick your teeth in.
Comments (6)
Right again, on the Democrats, Michael. On the tehnical side, don't cluster bombs sound like the perfect 4GW weapon? Couldnt a mini-version be mounted on one of those wild and crazy Katyusha rockets. The point wouldnt be to kill people, but to make a whole artichoke field near Tel Aviv unharvestable. Tit for tat kind of thing.
Posted by bobw | September 27, 2006 12:15 AM
Posted on September 27, 2006 00:15
We are a wicked people who deserve to be punished. James Howard Kunstler
Posted by Brian Miller | September 27, 2006 11:35 AM
Posted on September 27, 2006 11:35
Bobw -- Tit for tat indeed, but I have the impression that cluster bombs are fairly high-tech and temperamental, unlike the indestructible Katyushas and Kalashnikovs. Quite expensive, too. Nothing but the best for us world-bestriders.
Posted by mjs | September 27, 2006 12:21 PM
Posted on September 27, 2006 12:21
The fact that cluster bombs are considered "legal" weapons is simply beyond disgusting in the first place.
But the further, absolutely unjustifiable atrocity of Israel's use of these munitions is that most of these bombs were dropped during the last 3 days of the war -- when it was already abundantly clear that a ceasefire was about to imposed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060830/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictlebanon_060830184906
Excerpt:
UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said that thousands of civilians were at risk in south Lebanon from unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Israeli forces in the last three days of the war against Hezbollah guerrillas.
~snip~
"What's shocking and I would say completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end," he said.
sw
Posted by scarletwoman | September 27, 2006 5:06 PM
Posted on September 27, 2006 17:06
But guys like Berube say it's tacky to say the "H"* word out loud without hissing. So I never do. Because I'll be crushed if he doesn't think I'm rational enough about the whole surgical bombing thing to invite me to the prom.
*H*zb*ll*h
Posted by ms_xeno | September 28, 2006 10:08 AM
Posted on September 28, 2006 10:08
Sunday parking was always free in New York -- one of many outrageous subsidies to drivers, who constitute a minority of New Yorkers -- until 2002. In that year, a decree went forth from Mike Bloomberg to the effect that Sunday parking would henceforth cost as much as parking on Jehovah's six workdays. This is actually one of the very few constructive things Bloomie has done.
Enter the City Council, in defense of... religion. (I'll be back in just a sec, when this little paroxysm of laughter passes.)
--There, that's better. The Council, apprently concerned that our municipal government's hard-earned reputation for comprehensive idiocy might be marred by a single random act of good sense, passed a bill restoring the Sunday-parking SUV subsidy, and Bloomie vetoed it.
Well, there are no flies on Freddy Ferrer. He seen his opportunity, and he took it. No way could he disagree with Iron Mike on anything substantive. But Sunday parking, well, talk about a hot button.
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220-701, 350-040
Posted by kareena | April 29, 2010 2:51 AM
Posted on April 29, 2010 02:51